May 2, 2014

Over at FiveThirtyEight, founder Nate Silver has a long analysis of the likely market value of NBA franchises. He sees a correlation between the selling price of an NBA team and the number of billionaires who live in that metropolis. Above is a graph he made up of the change in prime residence of Forbes 400 members (who are roughly synonymous with American billionaires) over the last 9 years. (In general, analysis of the Forbes 400 is highly underexploited by academic economists and even most of the press.)

The big trend is the rise of New York, which added 20 members of the Forbes 400. (I wonder what percentage live in New York City? That's of interest because NYC is one of the few cities in America to charge a municipal income tax, which is currently a little under 4% on top incomes.) Los Angeles remains important but seems clearly in decline from its days as NYC's upstart rival. The rise of Miami is interesting. Are these Latin American zillionaires or old Americans relocating to the sun and non state income tax? Houston is up due to the oil boom. Dallas, with no state income tax, remains stably strong. Chicago and Minneapolis are fading. (It's cold there in winter.) Philadelphia has remarkably few billionaires.

By the way, I'm starting to like FiveThirtyEight.com as the sports website for people who don't watch sports on TV.

48 comments:

Anonymous
said...

i am genuinely surprised at Detroit.The weather is pretty terrible, the location...leaves something to be desired. If you like MidWest Americana, Chicago would scratch your itch while being less morose.My only thought is many people must *have* to live there, if only for the optics. The GM CEO et al can't be seen flying in from BosWash, now can they?

Well, Mike Ilitch of Little Caesar Pizza is the billionaire who owns the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers so that leaves five. Maybe CEOs or heirs of automaker companies? I really don't know either why they chose Detroit as their primary residence.

Detroit, I'm sure, means metro Detroit. People like it there. Google has an office there, in Bloomington. I think a good rule of thumb is that if Google has an office somewhere, that's a decent place to live.

at least with donald sterling's comments we have verification and indisputable evidence that european players are definitely paid less than african players who put up the same numbers, which i've observed even since i was 13 or 14 and started to pay attention to when players were signed in the off-season of various different sports.

by the time i was 21 or 22 i was just astounded at how overpaid some of the african players were, and every season i just knew ahead of time a couple guys would get overpaid ridiculously by some dumb owner. dan snyder is one of the worst all time for this kind of stuff.

i don't pay attention to soccer but apparently it's rampant there.

this stuff is easy to work out since sports generate statistics, and salaries are required by law to be public.

serious question: if instead of getting HIV back in 1991 and lying about it, what if earvin johnson got HIV today, in 2014. would he just admit he is a homo and that's how he got it?

"Yeah, I suck penises.""Yeah, I took it in the ass from random brothers."

because, aren't we're supposed to celebrate that now. throw a parade for him and stuff like that, when he comes out. the whole arena, filled with 18,000 people have to stand up and cheer wildly for that today.

People rioting in Kiev a few months ago, burning vehicles, erecting barricades and stoning the police - "demonstrators"

(peaceful) pro-Russian demonstrators a month or so ago - "activists"

peaceful pro-Russians today - "separatists" - whereas Republicans in Northern Ireland were "nationalists" for years. The analogy is that Republicans considered Ulster's six counties to be part of historic Ireland, as Ukraine has been part of historic Russia.

pro-Russians manning barricades, stoning pro-Ukranians, being burned to death or attacked by troops - "rebels".

Dave Pinsen said...Detroit, I'm sure, means metro Detroit. People like it there. Google has an office there, in Bloomington. I think a good rule of thumb is that if Google has an office somewhere, that's a decent place to live.

5/2/14, 10:07 PM

Birmingham, MI. Metro Detroit is very nice. Lots of money in Birmingham, Bloomfield, the Grosse Pointes. Dan Gilbert is wealthiest in Detroit. He owns much of the corporate properties/potential corporate properties for a steal. Smart guy. Folks on this site, though, wouldn't care for his H1B position. He has the governor's ear I'm sure.

SMall-city franchises would have more scope for "ego premium." My first thought was Washington DC, where no matter how much money you might have, you're not the President of the United States and LEader of the Free World, with all its imperial pomp and majesty.

But take a look at the Redskins ownership--for decades Jack KEnt Cooke, known in the DC press (positively) as The Squire, and now Dan Snyder. Dan Snyder is certainly paying an "ego premium."

@anon - you forgot Manoogian's fortune in Detroit. MASCO. Michigan also has Amway and many other family dynasties.

As for google in Michigan, one of the boys is from Michigan and AdWords is based in Ann Arbor (not Detroit).

As for Miami, every significant wealth on the planet it seems MUST have an address in S Fla. Not necessarily Miami, but Ft Lauderdale, and definitely Palm Beach. I believe S Fla to have the highest concentration of wealth in the country. Not for nothing is Ft Lauderdale the "super yacht capital of the world."

OT: campaign to disarm Americans has gone internationalhttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27243115It says in the article the other guy lay in wait and fired without warning. Now that's of course messed up. I myself once stumbled on someone's yard cause I have no sense of direction at all. But still, would the march have collected 600 if the guy was a real German? Just asking questions! :))Dumb jerries haven't realized yet Muslims aren't special in America, because she has her own "muslims" (blacks.) :))

OT: Have you heard the news from the Netherlands? Pim Fortuyn's murderer Volkert van der Graaf has just been released from prison, having served two thirds of his laughable 18 years sentence. Sets a really bad precedent and might well embolden other "anti-fascists". If you only spend a decade in prison for a political murder aimed directly at sabotaging the democratic process, the risk might well be seen as worth it.

Unbelievably, many wealthy whites who buy an NBA franchise are exactly like Sterling. They appreciate the low keyed, but genuine reality, of the lowly negro worker, with his physically smaller lower IQed cerebrum, employed by the white plantation owner.

Seeing it all, the way it should unfold naturally, when a more r selective, invasive sub-species of human, negros, want in to the higher culture of a more K selective sub-species of human, whites.

This is an unspoken reality. It was the proverbial cat let out of the bag, in the relationship struggle between Sterling and gold digger girlfriend, but you can bet your great grandpas gold pocket watch, Sterling is not alone on this.

Nate Silver knows this, we all know this, including the lowly negro.

It is just not to be brought out into the light of day.

Meanwhile, negros murder and rape our white sons and daughters, but this is swept under the rug. No one is supposed to see that either.

The way I'm reading the chart is that there's lots of money to be made in energy. Houston and OKC had the largest percentage gains of any cities. I would think that has something to do with oil and gas.

Nobody with real money pays the 4% NYC income tax. If you can show you spent half the year somewhere else, you're exempt. The very rich have multiple residences, so it's an easy dodge for them, even if they technically were in the city more than half the year. Derek Jeter is a famous example.

Silver's dirty analysis values the NY knicks at $2billion-ish. The whole company [MSG] just dropped belown $4b in value after an earning miss [and rev beat]. Besides the Knicks investors get the NYRangers, MSG media and MSG entertainment.

Living in today's asset-inlfating environment MSG stock showing potential a great asset-inflation play, especially on further drop.

Also, the influx of 'analytics' into NBA portends a rise of white players who can actually implement the metric-dependent adjustments sweeping the league. Dont be surprised to see a few new white stars in the next decade and this can ignite broader interest and will be a further boon to investors who own the Knicks through MSG.

I have done some more original research. This time bearing on the Sterling case.

I wondered if when I reached eighty, a time when I would likely have to pay for female companionship - not being a billionaire, could I afford it?

There are some qualifying factors. I can't imagine even at eighty being as ugly and as repulsive as Sterling. So I might be able to save few bucks there. I would probably have spent all my savings by then and be reduced to Social Security alone. And there is no guarantee there will even be Social Security by then. Maybe I will have to buy my women with Food Stamps.

In any case I spent ten minutes looking up escort services on the web. My findings:

1. The modal age for an escort is 19. Sterling's chippy is 38. So that's good news. It could be of course that some of these girls are lying about their age.

2. In Oakland most of the available escorts are black. I was a little surprised at that but in LA (where Sterling lives) almost all of them are white. They all look better than Sterling's.

3. I couldn't find any ads with rates but I did find an employer (pimp?) who was offering $20/hour for girls who can 'twerk'. More good news, I pay my handyman more than that. Apparently you can purchase such women without giving them Ferraris.

So even when old and poor and ugly I should be able to afford a doxie superior to Sterling's.

serious question: if instead of getting HIV back in 1991 and lying about it, what if earvin johnson got HIV today, in 2014. would he just admit he is a homo and that's how he got it? Magic Johnson: Hero of the Down Low.

Nate Silver strikes me as the epitome of knowledge without the wisdom to make sense of it. The east coast version of a silicon valley geek. Of course lots of data and lots of foolishness is a big part of the zeitgeist.

But this may be an artifact of just listing their office address. Most of the remainder are on Long Island.

Many of the wealthy take care to spend a certain number of days outside of NYC to dodge the NYC tax, and are careful to document their whereabouts for every day of the year. If they spend more than half of the year in NYC they're taxed as a resident.

La us poor its average income is only 55,000 versus 63,000 for San Diego. La just has more of the rich but a lot more poor than San Diego. San Diego has more of the moderate wealthy similar to Orange County at 71,000 income average. La is closer to income to the inland empire without the well to do.

Houston is much poorer than Fort Bend. Houston/Harris income about 55,000 versus Fort Bend at 78,000. The same thing more rich but Houston/Harris but lots of poor. Fort Bend less super rich but higher average income.

Salt Lake has lots less poverty than La or Houston but few billionaires who cares. Salt Lake scores better on poverty, average income is similar to the other two, less kids dropping out of high school even though their schools are more Mexican than in the past, and lastly it more white than the other two. The right however does not promote Utah like it does Texas why is that because they don't like Mormons. Also, it does better on equality.

The concentration of billionaires in NY is almost entirely in the financial industry, plus some real estate, which is parasitic off the financial industry. It's not really the case that major non-financial companies have their HQs there and as a result the owners also live there, though there are a few examples of that. (Bloomberg, Ralph Lauren, Este Lauder)

There are a lot of hedge fund owners. It's almost as if they find it valuable to talk to people face to face and learn stuff that might not be public yet.

What's going on here, well Don Bren is a Billionaire and made Irvine the 4th fastest growing city. Sure a lot of jobs for Hispanic construction workers but both Anaheim shown here and Santa Ana are only growing at .5. And the Bay Area Cities of California that lack Hispanics more are growing faster than many of the Hispanic cities or counties except some of the Inland Counties. Is there a new Asian trend in the US. Conservatives demised California except the Coastal counties with Hispanic populations under 40 percent now are growing faster than the Hispanic ones. And Irvine 11,000 is impressive since San Diego grow 17,000 and its over a million population while Irvine is now only 242,000. Its the fourth highest growth rate in the state with cities much larger.

Nate Silver strikes me as the epitome of knowledge without the wisdom to make sense of it. The east coast version of a silicon valley geek. Of course lots of data and lots of foolishness is a big part of the zeitgeist.

The fad seems to be mostly about proving trivia correct so that we can be more emotionally secure in our conventional wisdom. There's a couple of pages in the recent Steve Pinker-blurbed book "Uncharted" about the Google Ngram viewer, entitled "Can We Detect Censorship Automatically," to clownishly rehearse this new beloved fable of our age: The authors compiled stats on the names of which artists fell out of publication in Germany between 1933 and 1945. Then -- without sharing their Googlriffic Freakonomic research beforehand -- they query someone at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem for such a list ranked in the same order by diminution... Surprise surprise, the human version of the experiment yielded the same effing result. Thanks, Data!

Oh, but they have. Utah is friendlier to illegal immigrants than probably any other red or purple state in the country, and the owner of the Utah Jazz, Gail Miller, just backed a move to screw up our nominating system. They wanted it changed be ause it's helped defeat several RINO, open borders incumbents (Bob Bennett, Chris Cannon, etc.). Didn't take a lot of billionaires to do all that. And there are a few billionaires with second homes in Park City, some of whom may get involved in local politics.

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